INTROD UCTION. 



New South Wales, becoming the chief or one of the chief food pro- 

 viders to the hungry millions of the old world, if realized, must 

 certainly, in his own words, " soon restore the great pastoral 

 industry to its pristine preeminence." As much may be said of 

 the papers by jNIessrs. ]\IcKinney and Boultbee respectively, on 

 Water Conservation and Artesian Boring, setting forth the incalcu- 

 lable benefits to be derived not only by the pastoral industry but 

 by the country generally from a thorough system of irrigation, 

 as the one writer has it, " giving encouragement to dreams of 

 progress and development, even in the most arid districts, far beyond 

 the conception of the present nomadic, purely pastoral population," 

 or as the other, " equivalent to the addition of a new province." 



Then there are the group of papers relating to the several 

 branches of agriculture, following the excellent one by Principal 

 Thompson, of the Agricultural College, on the main subject. These 

 include every conceivable phase of this great industr}'-, from grain- 

 growing to tobacco culture, wine-growing to butter-making, and 

 may be said to form a veritable farmer's vade mecum, wherever in 

 this wide country of infinitely varied soil and climate, and therefore 

 of production, his lot may be cast. Principal Thompson's paper may 

 be specially noted both for its eminently practical character and 

 the excellent account it gives of the work being done in the way of 

 agricultural education under the auspices of the Department of 

 Agriculture, established in 1890 by the present Minister for ]Mines, 

 etc., the Hon. Sydney Smith. Certainly it would seem to be all 

 needed, for though the Principal of the Agricultural College is 

 naturally sanguine as to the future of agriculture in this country, his 

 conditions are absolute. There must be, he declares, much im- 

 jDroved methods of culture, more intense cultivation, a better system 

 of rotation of crops and more careful husbanding of resources, all 

 directed to the raising of only the best class of products. In a word 

 agriculture must be made a science. And when we are told that the 

 course of education at the Agricultural College includes, besides all 

 practical farm work, such subjects as the principles of agriculture, 

 agricultural chemistr}^, botany, geology, physics, mechanics, &c., 

 that the Department of Agriculture is for ever gathering and dis- 

 tributing fresh information for the farmers, and that at the several 

 experimental farms throughout the country tests are being made as 

 to the best crops and methods of culture for the special district, 

 there is evidently good hope that the requisite scientific knowledge 

 will be supplied. 



